A-Rod's Gone From Pariah to Messiah

In the end it wasn't about home runs, Madonna, Kate Hudson or anything else. It was about trust. Along the way, Alex Rodriguez learned to trust himself on and off the field, and that has made all the difference.

"The biggest difference for me is to be able to trust all my teammates," Rodriguez said on the eve of his first World Series, "to know that if they walk me, more likely than not, I'm going to score a run."